


Masks and Paint

by helloshepard



Series: helloshepard's TRANSFORMERS fics (2020- ? ) [21]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Background Prowl/Tarantulas (IDW), Canon-Typical Behavior, Cityspeaker AU, Established Relationship, Ethically Questionable Science, M/M, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28000218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloshepard/pseuds/helloshepard
Summary: Written for the Homemade AU zine. Soundwave, the Cityspeaker for Cosmos, considers adopting traditional cityspeaker paint.
Relationships: Cosmos/Soundwave (Transformers), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: helloshepard's TRANSFORMERS fics (2020- ? ) [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789297
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42
Collections: HOMEMADE: A Transformers AU Zine





	Masks and Paint

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-read by the delightful Anefi!

Soundwave woke to the sound of a muffled explosion. Instinctively, his sensornet pinged an alert, and he sat up, ready to attend to Cosmos if his Titan had been damaged. 

Cosmos hadn’t alerted him though, so it was probably fine: if he stretched his senses out past the alcove he had just recently been recharging in, he could taste Brainstorm’s unbridled glee as he overcame the latest hurdle in his project. 

Soundwave glanced at his datapad, studying the images of Cityspeaker markings Windblade had sent to him. It wasn’t that he  _ needed  _ them: Cosmos didn’t care one way or another, and everyone on the station who needed to know he was a ‘Cityspeaker’ already knew.

Cityspeaker. The title felt uncomfortable. It felt like a burden Soundwave had been unknowingly carrying his entire life. 

He didn’t think he wanted the paint. He didn’t  _ want  _ to be like Windblade and Lightbright, tied to the ground, so personable and welcoming it made him tired just thinking about it. Metroplex and Lodestar were beautiful, certainly: they had healthy, clear minds and sparks that shone so brightly they hurt to look at. 

But maybe  _ Cosmos  _ wanted it. Not the paint, but maybe he wanted the chance to land on Cybertron and meet Metroplex and Windblade and Lightbright and Lodestar  _ in-person,  _ not just through fuzzy video calls Mesothulas patched through when he had a free evening. And that would probably require Soundwave to learn how to be a cityspeaker. A  _ proper  _ cityspeaker, a cityspeaker with a capital-C.

Soundwave rubbed absently at his facemask. It was a relatively new—and very welcome—addition to his frame, courtesy of Mesothulas, but if he started wearing the cityspeaker paint, he would probably need to forego the mask. That was another thing to think about. 

Soundwave got to his feet and headed down the hall. Most mechs were in recharge at this late hour, but the person Soundwave wanted to speak to was wide awake. Mesothulas’ bright mind was a beacon amidst the station’s dim lights, and Soundwave followed its path past Brainstorm’s engineering lab and towards the wet labs. He took a moment to peek into Brainstorm’s mind—his latest invention was a smoking mess in the middle of the room, but Brainstorm was absolutely  _ delighted.  _

Mesothulas didn’t look up when Soundwave entered. Briefly, Soundwave scanned their vicinity for Prowl, but he wasn’t anywhere near—a small relief. It wasn’t that Soundwave  _ disliked  _ Mesothulas’ conjunx—it was quite the opposite, actually—but whenever Prowl was around, Soundwave found it hard not to get lost in the dizzying calculations that constantly spun around the security mech’s processor. Mesothulas’ mind was just as interesting, but Soundwave found tuning out the endless spirals of inspiration-invention far easier than ignoring pure math. 

As he usually did, Soundwave perched on his chair and watched as he waited for Mesothulas to finish working. His seat was close enough to the scientist’s workbench that he could see the half-finished form of Mesothulas’ latest invention. 

Most of the other scientists onboard didn’t care for Mesothulas. Their disdain for his endeavors left a bad taste in the back of Soundwave’s mouth, and he’d long ago given up on trying to figure out  _ why  _ trying to build new Cybertronians was such an affront to Primus, when cold-constructed mechs  _ already existed,  _ and... 

Soundwave liked him. He’d been nice enough to construct Soundwave’s facemask. More importantly, he didn’t mind the fact that Soundwave usually didn’t come into the labs to  _ talk.  _ He also didn’t particularly care about the nebulous safety standards the ‘Iacon lab drones’ thought of. To Cosmos’ eternal consternation, Soundwave had been treated to front-row seats of more than one of Mesothulas’ ‘happy accidents’. 

Today, however, Soundwave wanted to talk. 

Soundwave watched Mesothulas work, admiring the way the scientist somehow managed to simultaneously run a complicated debugging program  _ and  _ pull apart a knotted mess of circuits. 

“What do you think?” Mesothulas asked, and Soundwave looked up to see the scientist holding up two identical brain modules. 

Mesothulas was speaking to himself as much as he was to Soundwave, but Soundwave spoke up anyway. 

“Pertinent differences?”

“Prowl’s got an advanced Tactical OS installed.” Mesothulas tapped the side of his helm, then held out one of the processors for Soundwave to examine. 

Soundwave shook his head, and Mesothulas shrugged. 

“I’ve got Standard Augment, repartitioned for more free drive space. The initial operating system—entirely changeable: he’s going to have the opportunity for any job he wants— _ does  _ tend to have an effect on their function.” 

Soundwave nodded. He thought he understood—but now he was curious. He didn’t see numbers like Prowl did—only colors and smells and  _ sound,  _ but maybe he had been sparked with a different variant of Prowl’s processor. 

“Designation of Soundwave’s operating system?” 

He thought he heard Mesothulas grimace. 

“I’ve never had a chance to examine a cityspeaker before,” Mesothulas admitted. “But I  _ could  _ find out, if you want.” 

Soundwave shrugged. He had the feeling that most mechs might object to such a thorough examination of their processor, but that was what Soundwave did  _ constantly.  _ Letting someone else do it to him once in a while. 

“Tactical: mech will see numbers? Like Prowl?”

“It’s a possibility. There’s always a little guesswork when it comes to integrating foreign—that is, standard software with a fully customized frame. I’m  _ hoping  _ that the glitches have been worked out of the supposed backwards compatibility since the last update, but—” Mesothulas faded into comfortably unintelligible technobabble for another minute, and Soundwave found his attention being drawn to the paint swatches Mesothulas had pinned to the board above his desk. With the exception of the leftmost one, each was a pleasant shade of green, ranging from the harsh neon on the left to a deep, low dark green on the right. Soundwave determined to remember the colors when he next spoke to Cosmos and ask him what he thought about them; Cosmos had been mentioning switching up his paint nanites. 

“Is your mask bothering you?” Mesothulas asked. Soundwave hesitated a moment before nodding. Mesothulas held out a hand, and only a  _ little  _ begrudgingly removed his mask and handed it to the scientist. 

“Too tight? Loose?” 

“Tight,” Soundwave admitted, watching as Mesothulas wrangled an extra few microns out of the sleek metal. He hadn’t had the mask for long. By his estimation, it had been just a few weeks, but already the idea of being without it felt uncomfortable. 

“Mesothulas, willing to accept data transfer?” 

“Naturally.” The mech’s red optics mirrored Soundwave’s own, but they were alight with excitement Soundwave rarely felt comfortable expressing. “Anything interesting?” 

Soundwave handed the datapad to Mesothulas. He felt the scientist access it and examine its contents with practiced ease.

“Cityspeakers Windblade, Lightbright, explained to Soundwave the importance of face paint,” Soundwave said, as an explanation. There weren’t many mechs who could simultaneously examine data logs  _ and  _ hold a conversation. Mesothulas was one of them. “Soundwave, presented with the option of adopting cityspeaker tradition.” 

“Option?” Mesothulas asked. “Or requirement?” 

Soundwave shrugged. It wasn’t that the Camiens were  _ forcing  _ him—of course not. Windblade and Lightbright wouldn’t do that. It was just...Soundwave didn’t think anyone had ever been a cityspeaker and  _ not  _ worn the paint. Soundwave pulled the paint samples from his subspace and held them out for Mesothulas to examine, but they were pushed away. 

“That’s something to talk to Cosmos about,” Mesothulas said. “You don’t see me coming to Cosmos for relationship advice, do you?” 

“Mesothulas, speaks to Cosmos constantly.” 

“Not about that!” Mesothulas handed Soundwave his mask. Grateful, Soundwave snapped it back on. It fit perfectly. “About  _ science-y  _ things! Astronomy! Physics!” 

Slowly, Soundwave nodded. Mesothulas nudged him towards the door. 

Soundwave lingered for a few more minutes, long enough to take a final, lingering glance at the disassembled frame of a person-that-wasn’t-yet-a-person before Mesothulas shooed him out of his lab and into the hallway, muttering “Go talk to your little Titan,” in Soundwave’s direction.

Cosmos was in rest mode, though a part of his systems remained online to monitor the station itself. Soundwave felt the not-insubstantial weight of Cosmos monitoring  _ him,  _ even as the Titan slept. Soundwave sent a non-urgent ping to Cosmos, and he was only half surprised when he felt his Titan stir. 

“Cosmos: should rest.” 

_ > ‘m awake already, Soundwave. What’s up? _

Windblade had explained that most cityspeakers had to monitor their Titans directly, either from a data terminal or input directly into their HUDs, but Soundwave did neither, shutting his optics as he felt Cosmos’ systems cycle back to full awareness. 

_ > Something’s bothering you.  _

Soundwave sent over the data packet. There was little point trying to explain out loud: Cosmos knew Soundwave as well as Soundwave knew  _ him.  _ He knew something was weighing on Soundwave’s mind. 

The corridor shifted slightly, directing Soundwave towards his habsuite. Soundwave allowed Cosmos to lead him. He followed the twisting hallways, taking mental note of which corridors might need maintenance in the near future. Now that their contracts with the Senate Security were up, Rumble and Frenzy had been itching for something to do, and after their last drinking game had gone awry, they  _ owed  _ Cosmos. 

_> You know I don’t care about that,_ Cosmos said, finally. 

_ > Besides, I thought you liked the mask. _

“I do.” The door to his habsuite slid open and Soundwave stepped through. “Soundwave, understands Cosmos’ desire to interact with other Titans, Cityspeakers. Soundwave: believes that would entail Soundwave learning Cityspeaker traditions, customs.” 

_ > Huh. Still... _

Cosmos waited until Soundwave had settled down on the recharge slab before speaking again. 

_ > If they’re so stuck up that they want you to act and look like them before hanging out, I  don’t  think they’re the kind of people we would want to be around. _

Relief flooded through his circuits, and Soundwave nodded. “Appreciated, Cosmos.” 

Soundwave felt his Titan’s bubbling happiness at his free use of the word  _ we _ —mostly at the fact that Soundwave hadn’t rejected it outright. _.  _ He hadn’t been around to see Cosmos at his lowest point, lost and abandoned and  _ alone _ before being found by the Lunabots. He  _ had  _ felt the sharp worry when Soundwave left to visit Cybertron, and the cool relief when the long-distance comms network Blaster and Soundwave had been developing actually worked had been a balm against his overheating, panicked sparkbeats. 

_ Not alone,  _ Soundwave thought at Cosmos, as he plugged in the hardline cable to Cosmos’ ports. He didn’t  _ need  _ it, of course: Cosmos would alert him if anything happened, and the Titan’s status was a constant presence in his mind, but...he liked sleeping with a direct connection to Cosmos. And Cosmos liked it, too.  _ Never alone again.  _

“Soundwave...does not think Windblade is ‘stuck up’,” Soundwave said, aloud. He pushed a memory of the Cityspeaker introducing him to Metroplex over to Cosmos. He felt Cosmos examining it, turning it around in his mind as he felt the warmth of her smile, Metroplex’s excitement at meeting someone new. 

_ > Fine. She’s not stuck up. Still wouldn’t trade her for you, though.  _

Soundwave smiled. 

“Acknowledged.” 

Soundwave settled onto the recharge slab and granted Cosmos full access to his systems. As he always did, Cosmos ran a gentle defrag, untangling the sensornet programs that always became overwhelmed when they struggled to keep up with the massive amount of sensory data Soundwave processed. Once, the sensation of Cosmos directly in his systems had been terrifying: it had taken a dozen cycles for Soundwave to feel comfortable enough to accept a connection, then hundreds of cycles for his systems to accept that the then-foreign presence truly meant no harm. 

Now, it felt as natural as his spark beating. Cosmos finished running the defragmentation program and settled in against Soundwave for the night, activating a select few nerve circuits to simulate the feeling of another frame against his own.

He felt the gentle pressure against his frame, keeping him safe and anchored.

It felt like being held. 

And Soundwave wouldn’t trade that feeling for anything else in the universe. 

_> No paint,_ Cosmos said, finally. 

_ >Not if you don’t want to. _

“No paint,” Soundwave agreed, and shut off his optics. 

Safe in his Titan’s embrace, Soundwave drifted off to sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated!


End file.
